Now we’re really getting into this training thing. It’s week 3 and I’ve upgraded to 5 days per week. The 40 39.93-miles-per-week boat has also set sail.

I see a theme developing with the Monday runs: uneventful, middle-distance, snooze-fest.  I have a feeling the updates for these are going to be brief and uninspiring.  Or nonexistent.

Tuesday: more boring, lack-of-update update.  It’s early in this Weekly Recap thing, but I definitely think it’ll evolve into brief, heart-warming snippets, rather than forced, lackluster summaries.  Like this one.  Sigh.

We ran to work again on Wednesday.  This time I held my own a little better.  I felt like I was running with the group instead of just trying to keep up.  It turned out to be Tim’s last run to work before he relocates to Malaysia.  The skeptic in me thinks I was brought in as a replacement, but I’m ok with that.

Friday showed me exactly how close I can get to skipping a run but still pull myself out of bed.  So close, in fact, that while I was taking the dog on her pre-run walk, I was scheming how I could go back to bed and run later in the day.  To be honest, this very post is what gave me the final kick out from under the covers.  I didn’t want to have to explain why I didn’t run to you all …you.

And finally Saturday.  Oh Saturday, you hurt me good.  Tempo run?  Hill workout?  Long run?  Check. Check. Check.  Running with this group of guys is proving intense!  We headed out for 14 miles (per my request) and, as most of the routes done with the group, I was unfamiliar with where we were going.  I should have known Mount Bonnell wasn’t going to be a party, unless your idea of a party is running up a steep hill, followed by a steeper hill, followed by stairs to the moon… all after having already run 8 miles.  Woo.  Needless to say, I was spent after that.  Good stuff.

Actual Stairs

As you know, a founding principle of this blog is to innovate.  That actually doesn’t sound right, but let’s go with it.  I’ve linked each day of the week in the table to provide an onslaught of data at your disposal.  It will even show a map of where I went, though none will be as amazing as this one.  Just click the day of the week and hold on with all you got.  Week 4 here I come!

It’s that time again.  Keeping with the theme of summarizing “Mike’s Week in Running” I present to you Week 2 of the San Antonio training plan.  Since two is greater than one, week two was better than week one, and it brought some new trials and tribulations*.

Monday started out in much of the same fashion as the first Monday, but without all of the difficulty.  A little sluggish at first, I was able to gradually speed up throughout the run and finished comfortably.  Boring, I know.

New tribulation #1 was on Wednesday when I met up with some coworkers way before sunrise and we ran to work.  It took some planning ahead to leave clothes and other necessities at work the day before, and meeting between 5:42am and 5:43am was not part of the original plan.  Chris, Tim, and I met at a central point, all arriving within 3 seconds of each other and not needing to break stride.  Pretty impressive if you ask me anyone.  Along the way we picked up Erik at his house and meandered our way (“meander” may not be the right word considering the pace that these guys hold.  More on this later.) through neighborhoods and across busy streets until we arrived at work.  My total distance was a half mile shy of the training plan, a fact that wasn’t lost on me, more on that later, too.  Overall it was great to run with the group, but they sure are fleet of foot**.

Friday didn’t have much in the way of excitement.  I did go at a glacial pace for my recovery, so that deserves a big thumbs up.  The schedule said 5 miles, so what did I do?  5.4.  Clearly I needed to do something about that missing half mile from Wednesday, so why not add it to the recovery run, am I right?  And… breathe, all is right in the world again.

Saturday offered the second trial by fire that pushed me to the limit.  From last week’s late start-related heat issue, I sucked it up to get up very early on very Saturday to run with the group at 6:30.  Seven of us launched onto a pretty technical trail at an insane speed.  Immediately I was at the back of the pack and losing ground fast, and I couldn’t help but think of getting lost in the forest and being found by a group of shoeless hippies… so I turned around after a couple miles and finished up the run at my own pace on my own path.  The rest of the run was the bee’s knees***.

All in all it was a good second week of training.  Next week is the first 5-days-a-week week, so we’ll see how the cookie crumbles****.

*Trials and Tribulations is, in fact, a real idiom, for any skeptics out there that think I’m making stuff up again.
**So is Fleet of Foot
***Just threw this one in here for good measure
****And this one too 😛